Two division leaders meet, but one is 12-3, the other 6-8. Miami has been nothing short of brilliant since overpowering Toronto in the fourth quarter at the ACC on Nov. 5. Miami has won 9-of-10 since and eight straight overall by an average of about 15 points.

To quote any more Miami stats would be too depressing, so let’s see if there are some positives we can find with the Toronto Raptors. Defying their losing record, the Raps average 1 more PPG than they surrender. DeMar DeRozan is shooting 40% from beyond the 3-point arc, by far his best number ever. Kyle Lowry has an assist to turnover ratio of 3.75, which isn’t great but is much superior to his pre-season games.`

“It’s not something I’m going to stop doing. Obviously everybody wants a shot in the paint, (I) just haven’t been making them. I will start making them, I can guarantee that,” he said. Some have posited Gay’s off-season weight gain, in an attempt to play more power forward as a reason for his decreased lift and poor finishing inside, but Gay said he couldn’t point to any one thing. “It will even out, we’re still getting wins even with my poor shooting and when it picks up, hopefully we’ll be playing better as a team.”

Neither is a good player. Waiters has more talent but Ross plays more within his game and seems to know how limited he is. Waiters is definitely the better long term prospect though. I’m not sure if there was a guy with a lower ceiling than Ross picked in the top 10 of that draft.

If they traded places, my big problem with Thompson would be that he is such a black hole on offense (and has actually regressed in this every year since his rookie year whereas DeRozan has improved). The stagnant passing on the Raptors would get even worse.